Mold remediation in West Palm Beach, Florida
West Palm has the oldest intact historic housing in the two counties, and almost all of it had air conditioning added long after it was built. The ductwork went into the attic because there was nowhere else to put it.
Typical West Palm Beach housing stock. The failure modes below follow from how these houses were built.
El Cid, Flamingo Park, Grandview Heights, and Northwood Shores are full of 1920s Mediterranean Revival and mission bungalows — stucco over hollow tile or wood frame, original plaster, wood floors, and no ducts anywhere in the original design.
When central air went in during the 1970s through the 2000s, the ducts had to go somewhere. That somewhere was the attic, occasionally a soffit chase, and in a few unfortunate cases a crawl area. An attic in West Palm reaches 130 to 140°F in July with humidity to match, and a supply duct in it is carrying 55°F air. Every failure of that duct insulation produces condensation, and the condensation lands on the plaster ceiling below.
The historic stock also has the general problem of age: original windows retrofitted with modern glass, stucco that has been patched over eight decades, and roof assemblies that have been replaced enough times that nobody knows what is under the current layer.
What we see most often in West Palm Beach
- Sweating attic ductworkThe dominant finding in the historic neighborhoods. A compressed, torn, or wet duct wrap in a 135°F attic condenses continuously through the summer.
- Register boots on plaster ceilingsThe dark halo around a ceiling register. On plaster it is more salvageable than on drywall, which is worth knowing before someone quotes you a demo.
- Stucco cracking on hollow tile wallsWater enters at hairline cracks and travels inside the tile cavity, appearing at the interior surface well away from the entry point.
- Retrofitted returns in interior hallwaysUndersized single returns serving whole houses, producing high static pressure and poor dehumidification.
- Original plaster worth savingSemi-porous, and where the substrate and the lath are sound, cleanable. We would rather clean it than replace it with drywall.
- Additions built over former porchesExtremely common across the historic districts: a screened porch enclosed in the 1980s or 90s and turned into conditioned space. The junction where the addition roof meets the original roofline is where water gets in, and it is almost never the part anyone looks at.
What we do in West Palm Beach
The same six services run across Palm Beach County, and which of them a job turns into depends on what is actually happening — in West Palm Beach that usually starts with sweating attic ductwork.
West Palm Beach neighborhoods and ZIP codes
- El Cid
- Flamingo Park
- Grandview Heights
- Northwood Shores
- SoSo (South of Southern)
- Prospect Park
- Old Northwood
- Downtown / Clematis
- Ibis
- Andros Isle
- Southland Park
- Pineapple Park
- Vedado
ZIP codes served: 33401 · 33403 · 33405 · 33406 · 33407 · 33409 · 33411 · 33413 · 33415 · 33417
Mold questions from West Palm Beach homeowners
There is a dark ring around my ceiling vent. What causes that?
Condensation at the register boot, nearly every time. The boot is a metal box carrying 55°F air, sitting in a 130°F attic. If the insulation around it has compressed, torn, or gotten wet, the outside of the boot drops below the dew point of the attic air and water forms on it. That water wicks into the ceiling material at the perimeter of the register, which is exactly where the ring appears.
Can original plaster be saved, or does it all have to come out?
Often it can be saved. Plaster over wood lath is semi-porous, and where the plaster is sound and keyed to the lath, mechanical cleaning is a legitimate approach under the standard. What forces removal is plaster that has lost its key, is friable, or has growth into the lath behind it. We assess it rather than defaulting to demolition, because replacing 1925 plaster with drywall is not a repair, it is a downgrade.
Do you serve the western communities out toward Royal Palm and Wellington?
Yes — our Palm Beach County coverage runs from the Broward line to Jupiter and west past the Turnpike, including Royal Palm Beach, Wellington, and Loxahatchee. The housing out there is much newer and the failure modes look more like our Pembroke Pines work than like El Cid.
Our house has a later addition on the back and that is exactly where the problem is. Why?
Because the roofline junction between an addition and an original structure is the hardest detail on the building to get right, and on a house where the addition went on sixty years after the original it was frequently got wrong. Add that many of these enclosures sit on a slab poured over what used to be an open porch, with no vapour barrier under it, and you have two moisture routes in the one part of the house nobody inspects.
Other areas we cover
Serving West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County
Tell us the neighborhood and what you are seeing. The failure modes in West Palm Beach are specific enough that the call usually narrows it before anyone drives out.